Freightliner Columbia Mercedes pros and cons

I know they had prob with fuel lines & inj

 

In April of 2015 i finally said goodbye to my old Freightliner Columbia. Mercedes motor, smart shift ten speed. No one knows how it traveled 1,200,000 miles.
Most of it was behind wreckers. My own fault, i know. The best and worst personal fault is being persistent and never giving up.
So i will make a really long story short. Freightliner has lost a customer for life. Poorly engineered, poorly built and too dangerous to be using public roadways. Pervasive cylinder liner and head problems, a lemon for a transmission, an electrical system that doesn't serve or support the ecm on the engine or trans. End result= .30 cents per mile maintenance costs and rising. The trans would get locked in gear often and the truck wouldn't move. The engine would fail to start often because of fault codes, i had to jump the starter almost daily to get it running. After it started it could be seconds, hours or days before the transmission would wake up and begin working. Freightliner shops often broke more things than they fixed. Three engine in frames in a row (cause the first two shops had no idea how to rebuild a Mercedes), three turbos, three clutches, a rearend that came apart, three exhaust brakes (until i wired it open so it wouldn't work)..
Anyway, i did meet a couple of people that owned similar trucks and said theirs never broke or gave them problems. I never believed a word of it.
Do a lot of research before you buy any truck with a Mercedes motor or a Freightliner.

 

From what I understand. they released updated heads and gaskets which solved that problem.

Good fuel mileage

like anything, you can get more power and get it to run better if you want.

Expensive parts, harder to find.

If this is your first truck I would stay away from it because you can't afford the parts incase it goes lemon on you. same with newer cats.

 

Bibin,
We chose to purposely buy two of these trucks in march. We are in Michigan not far from the auto plants. Everyone will tell you their experience and some heresay. I finally gave in to the idea for regional trucks. The trucks came out of M&K Volvo in Indy. They were trucks from Fraley & Schilling out of Rushville, IN. They were both overhauled under warranty by Freightliner and have 300k and 400k on the overhauls. Truck 2424 has the most miles at 950k and lost the water pump in Klamath Falls, OR a few weeks ago. The dealer there had zip for Mercedes parts. Parts came out of Reno, NV. The local dealer here at home had the parts in stock and so did Williams.
The engine parts in the midwest will be better along major highways due to Jack Cooper having a large fleet of Sterling carhaulers with Mercedes. Our Freightliner and Williams dealers do a couple of complete engines every week for Cooper. That right there told me I could survive with a couple of regional trucks if Cooper keeps the large fleet going with them. Is it the best? Of course not. It is an option like any other single source engine.
I try to do all the maintenance on these myself in my shop. The parts are in line with the rest. I would suggest making sure the idlers and tensioners are in good shape because to do all of them on one of mine was close to a grand. Everything I do is for uptime not reactive wore out parts changing.

 

i own Mercedes aka mbe4000 with 10 speed.it gets very good fuel mileage.but it underpowered motor.the engine or turbo brake go bad or freeze up.the engine brake it self is joke.but every motor has it flaws.biggest problem is a lot of shops don't know how to work on them(easy to work on).i like mine.long as you keep up with the maintenance they will hold up. if you plan on running south of I-20 it will be ok. but as others said if its your first truck i would look into something else.

 

I bought mine sight unseen and had an unexpected trip home today and saw it first hand .
It's been sitting in a dirt lot for 2 months and was cold as hell when I tried to fire it up and she took right off even with batterys that sounded weak.
Needs some work and detailed but I think a pretty good truck for 12k.

 

I drove a 425 Columbia in school with an empty van on flat roads. Thing was the most gutless piece of garbage I've ever driven. Don't bother.

 

So you didn't own it then ? Or pay for the fuel or repairs?

 

Yea they fire right up in cold weather.can't go wrong for tht price.i got mine for 10k with 650k miles.JUST REMBER an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!!good luck!!

 

Thanks ..for the price and all the updates I thought it was a decent buy and has a 13 speed .